IAM514- Founder Specializes in WordPress Websites Development

Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today of Jackie Owens of Techjackie.com. Jackie, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Jackie Owens 0:39

Yeah, me too. Thank you for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

No problem pleasures, all mine. What I want to do is just read a little bit more about Jackie so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Jackie is a professional web developer and online marketer specialising in WordPress development and SEO. He's the founder of Techjackie.com, an online marketing agency in Pattaya, Thailand, and a blog providing knowledge about digital marketing. Jackie, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Jackie Owens 1:05

Definitely Gresh.

Gresham Harkless 1:08

Awesome. Well, I appreciate you for coming on the show. I wanted to kick everything off and ask you for what I call your CEO story and what led you to get started with your business?

Jackie Owens 1:16

Sure. So basically, it was back right back in January this year. In fact, late December last year, after I came back from my college. I just wanted to put whatever I have learned into action. At that time, my core passion was web development. Sitting around at home, I decided to probably try a freelancing service. I hopped on freelancers, and basically offer Web Development Service. There are a couple of a time later people started asking me like, whether I offer SEO or Google, AdWords, Facebook ad all those stuffs. At that time Seo was completely new to me, I literally had no idea what SEO was. Sure, I know Google AdWords. And Facebook ads, I, I've seen them from time to time, but obviously, I didn't know how to run those or set those up. So like when I decided to like, watch a couple of videos, read online tutorials. What what is SEO, auto stuff? And it kind of sounds interesting to me, so I decided to give it a shot and start learning everything by myself. Like, start online, buying online courses, watch YouTube videos, or read articles, something like that. Then later on, like I was sceptical about whether could we really rank a website on the first page of Google like by following all these kind of steps, because I was quite sceptical. Because I actually came from a computer science background, like, like, after I graduate from my college, then it was, like engineering mindset. I wouldn't trust anything, unless I really see it in action. So I decided to build up my website, and practice what I learned, put everything into action. At that moment, it was just a normal blog. Because obviously, I was into SEO at that time, but I was also start learning other things as well. Side by side, I blogged about basics about digital marketing. Then, while working as a freelancer three months later, I started getting traffic, organic traffic. I thought, like, whoa this thing really works. Then I decided to I thought that if it worked for me, it might work for others as well. I decided to offer it as a free SEO package alongside with my Web Development Service. Soon later on it worked for a couple of clients, obviously, it was not that good because I was obviously a beginner at that time, but at least it got them traffic leads got all those stuff. It started working for others, it worked well for me. Then I decide there's a potential line in this stuff, I decided to make my own website like rebuild it a little bit, appreciate the homepage to basically offer just Web Development Service and SEO at that time. Like it was just all about me nothing about my agency at that moment. I was managing the web development freelancing and as well as my own websites side by side. Later in August, where I decided to really quit freelancing and fully focus on my website and build everything from there, make it an agency because to be honest, like working as a freelancer was pretty tough like really have to be on time and you get all those stuff, communication barriers as well. We've got the clients, then all this stuff. Also, I've always wanted to have my own business since I was a child. Because one thing, which I really love about being an entrepreneur is the freedom of idea execution where you can execute whatever ideas you have and put into real practice. Whereas if suppose if I've worked for, let's say, in any other companies, sure we are working towards some goals, but that goals are not truly yours like someone else go. Besides all those are freedom, lifestyle, and all those stuff, which always eventually, I have to get there. I like that's basically what every entrepreneurs will be. From August onwards, I've been focusing on purely on my own agency and start building up small group, people also started working full time and later on start offering other types of service besides SEO as well. Basically, that's my story.

Gresham Harkless 5:57

Nice, I definitely appreciate that, appreciate you sharing all that with us. Because I think a lot of times especially I think I use the saying, I don't know if I want to call it technology driven, but it's definitely constantly changing. A lot of industries like that you have to really work in in a lot of times people get started by just doing and tinkering on their own website, they have an interest, and they start to love it. Then they started to spend more time and then they start to do more, and then they start to offer it to close friends and family, maybe something like that, then all of a sudden, it starts to become an agency. I appreciate you for, for sharing that with us and reminding us that it also wasn't an overnight thing where you just said, Okay, I want to have an agency, and then you started to put in the work.

Jackie Owens 6:36

Yeah, exactly. I didn't decide to quit my freelancing, that moment. It took time for me to really build the experience, and build the confidence that because, like, I started out, learning everything by myself like through the internet, and really put everything I learned into my own website. Then later on, I started offering to other clients as a free service, because I wasn't really sure that I was going to be able to do it or not. But it actually worked out. Although it went through different trials and errors, but eventually it worked out. Then later on, when I became pretty much confident with it, as well, as it was the right time, because when I quit my freelancing job, I also got a couple of testimonials, which say, this person has done a very good job of SEO as well as web development. I was able to put all those testimonials and reviews on my own website as well. We had to really build that kind of portfolio. It wasn't just a one overnight success, obviously.

Gresham Harkless 6:36

Yeah, absolutely. It's a process. Sometimes we are we often forget that process that it takes to get to where we want to be. I know, you touched on a lot of the things that you're doing for your clients, did you have anything additional to add? What do you feel kind of sets you or your organisation apart and is your secret sauce?

Jackie Owens 7:53

Sure. Well, I don't think it's really our unique stuff but I think whenever I offer the service, we try, like our agency tried to be as transparent as possible and try to educate a client as much as we can. Because you see, like many people who came to us or any other companies, in fact, which like 99% of them had has some disappointment with their previous companies. Either they got cheated, or they didn't get the expected results. Lots of them already came to me. Obviously, these clients they have, they know that digital marketing is a thing. It really works, but they have lost trust in the companies that they have worked with. They always came to me with some doubts in their mind. We always try to make sure that we like for example, right before they even hire us, we set up clear goal and the processes, which we what we are about to achieve. Then we would further break these down into sub processes and goals, to make each one of them seems achievable and realistic. Besides what I mean by educating them, for example we try to come up with logical reasons behind every thought processes that we do like, once we start working with them. Like, for example, we explain to them why we're doing this, instead of that, or why this is happening or something like that. Basically try to walk them through the process along with us and make them feel being a part of the journey. That's what we're trying to do with each of our clients, whether it's a small project or a big project.

Gresham Harkless 9:40

Absolutely. I wanted to switch gears a little bit, I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This could be digital marketing related, or just anything you use for business what's kind of like an app or book or a habit that you have that makes you more effective and efficient

Jackie Owens 9:54

Habit and mindset.

Gresham Harkless 9:55

I appreciate you for sharing that with us. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. This could be a word of wisdom, especially if you have something digital marketing related that our listeners and viewers can take advantage of. What's something that you might tell your younger business self or tell a younger client as well?

Jackie Owens 10:15

I think there are three things that no everyone or anyone who wants to start a business online should really take into consideration. So first, I would say, to combine organic and quick wins strategies. For me, personally, I have divided online marketing or digital marketing into two main categories, that is organic strategies, which SEO, social media marketing, pretty much all those strategies, which requires time and effort and money. It takes some time to put in all this stuff, and eventually, you get the results like, what does it once you get the ball rolling, it's worth it. So those kinds of stuff. On the other side, there's a quick wins strategies, which such as, the all pretty much all the ads like Google AdWords and Facebook marketing. Because you see with the organic approach, you build the credibility and trust with your brand and business. Whereas when you look at the Quick Wins strategy, you're able to produce the quick profit and money out of it. So, and I think, for any business, to be successful out there you need trust and credibility, of course, but you also need profit and money to reinvest those in back into your business to further grow it right. When you combine these two approaches, together, it forms a perfect business model, and what every business should really need to get have right to become successful. The second tips I have is to leverage omni channel approach, which basically focus on more than one channel because you see, if you just completely rely your business on, say, SEO or social media marketing it's not that safe because on the internet, nothing is reliable. Suppose if your entire business model depends on SEO, if one day your website gets hit by a penalty, then your business is gone or let's say a social media marketing, let's say your Facebook ads or your ad account get banned, and you're gone as well. It's much better to leverage different marketing approach to different marketing channels. So in that case, number one, you become more safe. Number two, you be able to generate more awareness and more income and more sources and number three, you be able to reach out to more number of people and audiences. The final tip I have is to leverage offline relationship, like to build offline relationship. Because what I see many new business owners who have come to online marketing, what they tend to be focusing on is to building the online relationship much more than the offline relationship. True, that is important but I think at the fundamental level, we as a human, we still crave for physical contact, or the eye contact or the real physical presence with whether it's meeting or handshake, something like that, which I think it's still pretty, very effective. So just like, for example, let's say joining local meetups or national meetup or attending any events, business events, so I think that's really effective as well. So yeah, these are three tips.

Gresham Harkless 13:29

I love those three tips. I think it's so important because as you said just understanding the different types of marketing that you're doing, if you're doing something for the quick wins, I just talked about what the advertising or if you're doing something that's more foundational building something long term, just understanding what you're doing is huge. As you talked about just like in business, you want to have multiple streams of revenue, the same thing should be the approach and having that omni channel approach to your marketing. Like you said Facebook changes their algorithm, or Instagram does, which it has a couple of times, or not kind of left up to that one channel to grow and develop your business and like you said, I think a lot of times, especially in the digital world, we forget about the offline relationships. We forget about going to those networking events, even hopping on a call sometimes and just going to get coffee with somebody all that kind of goes hand in hand. It just deepens those relationships. I appreciate those nuggets.

Jackie Owens 14:23

Yeah, sure. No problem.

Gresham Harkless 14:25

Absolutely. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favourite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Jackie, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Jackie Owens 14:35

Sure. According to me being a CEO means being like a captain of a ship where your essential jobs are controlling and coordinating the crew, which are your team members, responsible for anything on the ship, whether it's good or bad. Come up with a unique and creative solutions to the problems which ultimately make sure that the ship is selling in the right direction, smoothly.

Gresham Harkless 15:00

Nice, I definitely appreciate that definition and even that kind of visual where you understand that the decisions that you make are for the larger journey that you're going on, and a lot of sometimes the small decisions that we make, you had to have that vision of the entire ship and where you're going on the on the waters as well too. I appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more Jackie. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know and then of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Jackie Owens 15:32

Sure. As far as any additional thing is concerned, I don't think there's anything left like unless you want to ask me more but yeah, like you can find me like on pretty much every social media channels Facebook, you can find me with the name of Tech Jackie, Twitter Jackie Owen, there's also bracket Tech Jackie. I am pretty much active on Instagram Tech Jackie as well. So you can find me on those channels, or even LinkedIn, but I'm pretty much not active there. Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 16:03

All right. Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Jackie. We definitely looking forward to continue the conversation with you. We will have the links and information in your show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. Again, I appreciate you, appreciate your time, appreciate all the awesome things you provide it and I hope you have a phenomenal rest today.

Outro 16:21

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai